Considering the Possibilities
by Colleen
Summary: Soaking wet strangers that fall out of the sky should always be taken with a grain of salt...and every other weapon you can come up with. Too bad for Dean none of them seem to be working. Au from Hello, Cruel World and before Pilot.


Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Author's note: This thing has been eating my brain for weeks. I don't know when I'll continue it, but I thought I'd get this much out for now. AU from Hello, Cruel World and a little over two weeks before the Pilot. Yep, time travel once more.

Summary: Soaking wet strangers that fall out of the sky should always be taken with a grain of salt...and every other weapon you can come up with. Too bad for Dean none of them seem to be working.

Considering the Possibilities

By Colleen

Chapter 1

Dean heaved the last shovel full of dirt out of the grave and sighed. This would have been a hell of a lot easier if his dad had been here to help. He raised the shovel and slammed it down on the rotting wood of the casket. He did it a couple more times until he could pull up the wood and expose the bones.

He was just about to haul himself out of the hole to get the salt and gasoline when the night suddenly got much colder.

"Ah, crap." Reaching out, he grabbed the shotgun he'd placed nearby.

Dean's exit from the grave was suddenly very rapid. As in, he went flying. He landed with an oomph and looked up to see a pissed off ghost standing by the headstone of its grave.

Thankfully, Dean had held onto the shotgun. The ghost dissipated in a blast of rock salt and Dean dove for his duffle bag, quickly dumping salt and fuel onto the body. He had to use his second shot to disrupt the ghost again and managed to drop a flaming wad of newspaper into the grave just as the ghost was reforming for try three. Dean backed away as the thing exploded into flame before it disappeared with scream.

Dean slumped to the ground, exhausted. Given a choice, he'd have stayed slumped there until morning, but a low growl had him looking up, startled.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Torn jeans, a ratty t-shirt and way too many teeth. Dean grit his own in frustration. There had not been a single sign of werewolf activity, but here one stood, ready to rip Dean's heart out and eat it.

Dean carefully reached for the handgun he had tucked in the back of his jeans. The bullets might be lead, but he had a spare clip of silver in his pocket.

The only problem, he didn't have the gun to go with them. He glanced over to where he'd landed when the ghost had thrown him and almost growled at himself to see it lying in the dirt, too far away for him to reach.

He was trying to remember if he'd packed his silver knife into the duffle bag along with the iron one, when the werewolf leaped at him. Dean attempted to scramble back out of the way at the same time his hand found his duffle bag, the movement dragging it along with him as he groped blindly for the silver knife he hoped was there.

Suddenly, Dean was blinking water out of his eyes and sputtering. He only just managed to see through the deluge as several bucket loads of water and a form in a dark suit slammed into the werewolf, knocking it out cold.

Dean changed directions to his gun. He quickly exchanged clips and moved carefully over to the tangle of man and monster. When the guy on top of the werewolf didn't move, he cautiously rolled him off the carnivore. Although it wasn't very sporting, Dean pumped two silver bullets into the werewolf and checked to make sure it was dead before dealing with his third bit of weirdness this night.

Although it was a little hard to tell with him lying down, Dean thought that the guy was probably a couple of inches shorter than he was. He was breathing and his pulse was steady. There were no claw or bite marks from landing on the werewolf. He was dressed normally, wearing a dark business suit, white shirt and blue tie. He was also soaking wet.

Dean went back to his duffle bag and found that yes; he had packed the silver knife along with the iron one. He grabbed both of them and went back to the guy. Pulling up the double sleeves of shirt and suit coat as far as he could, he gave him a quick cut on the arm from each knife. The wounds bleed a little bit, but otherwise there was no reaction.

Dean turned to shove the knives back into his bag. If he'd watched a little longer, he would have seen both cuts heal over in the space of a few seconds.

Next, Dean tried to wake the guy up. When yelling at him and shaking him didn't work, the hunter simply sighed and picked him up. He carried him over to the Impala, wrestled the door open and slid him into the back seat. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew it wouldn't be right to leave the guy in the graveyard, especially since his sudden appearance had saved Dean's ass.

Huffing slightly, he went back to collect his stuff. Normally, he would have reburied the body he'd just burned, but he'd had enough for one night and he suspected that if he hung around he'd end up jumped by something else. He made sure he had everything, dumping it all into the car's trunk. He checked one more time on the guy in the back seat, then started the car and pointed it towards the abandoned house he was currently calling home.

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Normally, Dean would have dropped his passenger off at the nearest hospital, sticking around only long enough to make sure someone was checking him over. However, he was in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. A nowhere he'd actually been through before, so he already knew that the nearest hospital was more than a couple of hours away. He didn't think he was awake enough to pull that off right now and as the guy appeared to be stable, he figured he could look him over at the squat he was using and if it looked bad, he could then call him an ambulance and get out of there.

Dean heaved the guy out of the car with a groan. For someone so slim looking he certainly was heavy. He staggered up the stairs with him and into the house.

The furniture had been minimal, but there was a table, a chair and an old mattress that he'd beaten the dust out of until lying on it didn't make him want to sneeze.

He laid the guy out on it, grimacing slightly. He didn't know what was up with the water, but both he and his mystery man were still very wet. With a sigh, Dean pulled a towel out of another duffle bag and started to strip the guy. He'd gotten him out of the suit coat and was unbuttoning the shirt's sleeves when he noticed a lack of small open cuts.

Frowning, he checked the other arm, in case he'd been more tired than he thought and had mixed them up.

And that was a no.

Dean pulled out the knives, salt and Holy water and ran some more tests.

No reaction and the guy still wouldn't wake up.

Completely at a loss, Dean admitted that he needed help. Therefore, he did what he often did in these situations. He pulled out his phone and called his dad.

As usual, he got his voice mail.

In an odd need for privacy, Dean turned away from the man on the mattress. "Hey, Dad. Uh, I just finished a salt and burn and I took out a werewolf… Long story. Anyway, I ran into this guy, or rather, the guy ran into the werewolf, another long story. The guy is unconscious. He doesn't react to silver, iron, salt or Holy water, but if you cut him, he heals really fast. In fact, I've tried it a couple of more times and not only is the healing getting faster, but it's getting harder to cut him. Whatever he is and I doubt it's human, but whatever it is, I've never seen it before." He turned back to look at the man, jerking slightly when he found him sitting up on the mattress, looking at him.

"Hello Dean."

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When John Winchester finally got into an area that had cell reception, he flipped his phone open and noticed that he had a voice mail from his son. He seriously considered erasing it without listening to it. He knew now that he was going to have to disappear. Things were finally coming to a head. The long hunt for Mary's killer would finally see an end.

Only now, he was certain that that killer, the yellow-eyed demon, was the one doing the hunting and he was after John. He wasn't going to be able to go anywhere near Dean and certainly not anywhere near Sam for the foreseeable future.

Still, ignoring a call was never a good idea. He opened his voice mail and listened to the message.

At first, he shook his head and rolled his eyes at what his son was saying.

All that changed with two words.

"Hello Dean."

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Dean dropped his phone and pulled out his gun. Unnoticed by the two people in the room, the phone landed well and the voice mail continued to record everything said.

Dean trained his gun on the guy. The whatever he was, glanced down at himself. With a frown, he glanced around, noticing his suit coat lying in a wet lump on the floor.

"Where is my overcoat?"

Dean shook his head. "Sorry, that's all you were wearing. And by the way, what are you?"

The guy appeared surprised by the question. He tilted his head and looked Dean over, jerking slightly at whatever he discovered by doing so.

"What is today's date?"

"Uh… October 13th… or possibly 14th, depending on the time."

Slowly, the man stood. "I was more interested in the year."

"Oh, that's not good."

The guy tilted his head again and waited.

"2005. It's 2005." Dean told him. "Now, I'd like some questions of my own answered."

"No, I'm sorry. You can't be allowed to remember this meeting." Then the guy moved. Dean always thought that the way ghosts could do that blink and they were across the room thing was fast, but this was worse. Two fingers were coming for his forehead and he simply reacted in the best way he could to save himself.

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John's knuckles whitened as he gripped the phone. He heard the sound of gunshots and the shaky exhale of his son's breathing.

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The guy was on the floor. He'd been knocked back beside the mattress with bullets in his chest and holes in his white button down.

"Holy shit." The adrenaline after burn left Dean shaking, but he didn't lower his gun.

Somehow, he wasn't completely surprised when the guy sat up again, but that didn't stop Dean from pulling the trigger once more.

The guy grunted and gave him an annoyed look. "That is actually uncomfortable." He stood once more and gave the bullet holes in his shirt a glance that Dean would have catalogued as prissy. The guy passed his left hand over his chest, clenching it closed as he pulled it away to show that the holes were gone.

Dean looked up into his eyes, realizing for the first time just how intense a stare the other 'man' had. With an almost smirk, the whatever he was held his left arm out over the mattress and open his hand. The sound of spent bullets hitting the mattress was somehow very loud.

Dean swallowed to compensate for the sudden dryness in his throat.

"What are you?"

"I'm…" The guy hesitated and then shook his head. "I'm not for you to know."

Then he was back in Dean's face, one hand gripping the younger man's gun arm at the wrist and shoving it aside while the other hand reached out and pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead.

Dean dropped, but never hit the floor. The stranger caught him, pulled him into a bridal carry and moved him to the mattress. After kicking the bullets aside and laying him down, the being Dean would have called Cas a few years from now sat down on the rickety chair and stared at the young man, thinking.

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Quietly frantic, John Winchester loaded his truck, the neatness only occurring because for him it was faster than a tossed mess would have been. He wasn't exactly sure where Dean was, but he could make a decent guess by the fact that he'd been in New Orleans for a job he'd done just before this phone call.

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Dean came awake behind the wheel of the Impala and looked out the windshield. It was morning and the scene in front of him was familiar.

"What the hell?"

"Actually, it's Stanford."

Dean jerked away from the voice, slamming up against the driver's side door. Eyes wide, he stared at the stranger from the graveyard.

"You didn't kill me."

If Dean had known him like his older self did, he would have known that the slight narrowing of the man's eye was as good as a flinch.

"No. I had no intention of doing that, although I had planned to erase your memory."

Dean stiffened. "You didn't though." He paused, realising he wouldn't actually know. "Did you?"

Again, the tug at the man's lips was a smile. Dean just didn't know it.

"No, your memories are intact."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief, and looked out the window again. Finally, he processed what the guy had told him a moment ago.

"Why are we at Stanford?" Dean tried not to grit his teeth as he asked, but it didn't quite work.

The guy looked out the window and tilted his head in thought. "I am considering the possibilities."

Dean's hand slipped down and gripped the handle of the emergency knife he kept attached to the back door where it could be reached from the front seat.

"I'd rather you didn't." The stranger said. "I believe I have been stabbed by Winchesters enough times to last even my life time."

Dean swallowed. "I knew it. You're from the future."

The guy made an attempt at looking innocent. "What makes you say that?"

"Uh, needing to know what year it is. And the thing about us stabbing you."

"Ah, yes."

"Did the stabbings ever work?"

The guy looked at him, eyebrow raised.

Dean winced and nodded. "Yeah, that would be a no."

This time the guy smiled enough that Dean noticed. "You two and Bobby Singer have shot me with salt, attacked me with iron, trapped me in fire, and stabbed me twice, once with a magically imbued knife and once with a magically imbued sword. The closest you came to killing me was when you summoned and bound something stronger than me and ordered it to kill me."

Dean felt his mouth go dry. Just how desperate had they been for Dad and Bobby to work together and to do something so incredibly stupid? "Why didn't that work?"

"He was technically more powerful than I. However, I was stronger than the binding spell. I broke it."

Dean's face scrunched up at the implication. "Am I even alive in whatever future you're from?"

The guy fixed his gaze on something outside the window. "I believe so. You were when I left at any rate. Even though De… The being you summoned was no doubt angry with you; I believe he was more annoyed with me at the time. He even helped you with something you would need for the ritual to strip me of the extra power I was in command of at the time."

Dean choked and looked at him. "You mean you use to be more powerful than you are now?"

The guy actually chuckled. "I could have destroyed the entire planet with a snap of my fingers. He tilted his head. "Actually, I could have destroyed more than that, but I believe you get the idea."

Crap.

"So, why the time travel?"

"It was either that or be torn apart. Unfortunately I didn't have much control over the leaving or the landing."

"Which is why you and half a lake ended up slamming into a werewolf?"

"Actually, it was a reservoir." He frowned. "I landed on a werewolf?"

"Yeah. You will probably be sad to hear this, but you saved my butt doing it."

"On the contrary, I'm glad. It is a nice butt."

Dean jerked back. "Uh." His knee jerk reaction was to tell the guy he wasn't interested in that sort of thing. However, as the dude wasn't even looking at him, Dean clamped his mouth shut and wisely said nothing.

"There he is."

Dean glanced out the windshield to see what he really hadn't wanted to see. His brother Sam and a pretty blonde woman were walking down the sidewalk, books in hand and goofy smiles on their faces.

Dean glanced at his wristwatch. Frowning, he gave it a tap. Sure, he knew it was morning, but it had to have been the next day. There was no way the guy could have driven to Stanford from where they'd been in less than eight hours. Except, the next day would have been Saturday and his brother was definitely going to class and not just heading somewhere to study.

He noticed the guy looking at him. "I moved us and the car here, but I let you sleep. You appeared to need it."

Dean did a brief impression of a fish. "Just how long did it take to move us here?"

"About ten seconds." He noticed Dean's expression of shock and shrugged, misunderstanding. "I am still not back to my full strength. Next time I should be able to do it faster."

"Gleep?"

The guy frowned, as if not familiar with the word. Which for once wasn't odd, as it was simply Dean's language skills breaking down under stress. The guy visibly put his confusion aside with a weary familiarity, as if he did such things often in the presence of others. Or at least, in the presence of Dean.

"We should follow your brother.

That pulled Dean back from his little mental meltdown in short order.

"Why?"

The guy sighed. "Because, I haven't decided what to do about him yet."

Dean's hand tightened around the knife handle again. The guys lips twitched and it didn't take knowing him to recognize the invitation to 'bring it' in his eyes.

So Dean did.

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Cas caught Dean's arm by the wrist before the young man could plunge the knife into the angel's chest. He hadn't been joking when he said he was tired of getting stabbed and besides, at his current power levels, it really was uncomfortable.

With a twist, he disarmed Dean, catching the knife with his other hand before releasing the young man. Muttering things best left unheard, Dean rubbed at his wrist and glared.

"If you are done, then we should follow your brother."

"What are you, a broken record?"

"No, I am merely concerned about your brother."

"What? I mean, from the sound of it, you're my super villain nemesis. Why would you care about my brother?"

Cas blinked and ran the conversation they'd been having for the last while through his head. With events taken out of their context as they were, it did sound as if he and Dean were on opposite sides and trying to kill each other.

It saddened him, but perhaps it would be for the best. If he did what he was seriously considering doing and changed what was to come, then Dean would never know of their friendship.

More importantly, he'd never know how that friendship was betrayed.

He had hoped to redeem himself in Dean's eyes, but perhaps just redeeming himself would be enough.

But, how to explain wanting to help Sam? Well, he could try something he hadn't been very good at recently. The truth.

"I owe him, for reaching out to me when I was self destructing."

"What, you were doing the absolute power thing?"

As usual, Dean confused him. For a change though, the young man explained what he had just said.

"You know? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's a saying."

Castiel nodded. "It does sum up the situation I was in."

Dean shook his head. "And Sam helped you? Man, this is why he could never be a hunter. He's too nice."

And now Dean had confused him again. Sam could be very nice, but he was an excellent hunter.

"You know, if you really want to help Sam, you could do it by leaving him the hell alone."

"I have considered that possibility. Changing things now could make things much worse in the long run, and they were already bad enough." Sam and Jess had walked out of visual range. Cas reached out and grabbed onto Dean's shoulder, moving both of them to the classroom the couple were headed too.

"What the…" Dean glared at Cas. "Don't do that."

Cas ignored him and scanned the gathering students.

"How do you know this is the right classroom?" Dean asked.

"I popped into Sam's apartment and checked his class schedule."

Dean stiffened. Scary supernatural dude that he didn't seem to be able to kill had been in Sam's place.

"Damn it, doesn't he have any protection set up?"

"Some basic wards. Not anything that would have stopped me." Cas mulled the state of things over for a moment. "Also, nothing that would stop anything that had been invited in."

"Yeah? Is there anything that would stop you?"

Cas tilted his head in thought. "There are some wards you could use to bar me from a place. There are also ways to trap me or summon me." He moved his eyes over to Dean's face. "But without knowing my true name or what I am, it would be unlikely that you could do any of that."

Dean quietly ran through a litany of swear words, to go silent only when Sam and his girlfriend entered the classroom.

Castiel examined the young man. He was… happy. Not that the angel hadn't seen Sam happy before, but this was more innocent. Without the knowledge that any happiness that came his way had to be guarded carefully against the next round of pain and horror they were sure to land in.

It was only because he was staring at the younger Winchester that he noticed the slight hitch in his step. He had definitely noticed them, or more likely, he had noticed his brother.

"Well, at least he's not completely rusty." He heard Dean mutter.

When Cas glanced over at him, he noticed that Dean was surreptitiously patting his pockets down, looking for something.

Cas handed him the keys to the Impala. "I believe I left your wallet in the trunk."

Dean snatched the keys from him with an annoyed look. "What about my phone?"

Cas smiled.

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John Winchester pulled up to the old abandoned house that he remembered him and Dean using a little over a year ago. This would be the third place he'd have checked since getting that phone call from his son and it didn't look any more likely than the last two places, not with the Impala not there.

Shotgun in hand, John crept through the house, until he found the table, chair and mattress in the front room. Somebody had stayed here recently, although it didn't mean it had been Dean.

"Come on Son." If Dean had been here and had been taken, then John fully expected him to have found some way to leave a sign. A drawing in the dust, scratches on a wall…

An open phone on the floor.

A quick look at the contact list proved that it was Deans. From what he'd heard the night before, this would be the most likely place for him to have been standing. Which meant that after he'd dropped the phone, he's never had the chance to pick it up again.

"Damn it."

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"You left it there?"

Scary dude just shrugged and went back to watching Sam. Dean would have totally bitched at him, but the teacher came in. Slumping down, Dean kept an eye on his brother and his nemesis, while ignoring the professor.

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Sam unclenched long enough to give Jess a smile and then attempted to split his attention between the lecturer and the fact that his brother and someone, another hunter probably, were sitting in the back of the classroom, pretending to audit the class.

He didn't know why Dean was here, and he didn't care. He was out of it and he wasn't coming back.

The screwed up thing was he really just wanted to walk up to his brother and give him a hug. Just revel in the fact that Dean was here and maybe find out what him and yes, even Dad, were up to.

But in their world, family visits could never be that innocent.

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Well, that was two hours Dean knew he'd never get back. Watching the class break up, he signed.

"I did not realize that education could be so tedious." The being next to him said.

Dean had to laugh, just a little. "You and me both, bub." Sam was talking to his girl. To Dean, it looked like he was telling her that he'd meet up with her later.

"What did you mean earlier, when you said things were bad enough without you mucking around with time?"

"One of Sam's friends has been possessed by a demon. In a little over two weeks, under the orders of the being your family refers to as the Yellow Eyed Demon, he will pin Sam's girlfriend to the ceiling and burn her alive."

Dean was glad that Sam wasn't looking at him at that moment, because he would have seen all the colour drain out of his brother. He turned fully to look at scary dude.

"It's going to happen on the anniversary of Mom's death, isn't it?"

The guy nodded. "Yes."

"Why? Why do that? "

"The explanation to that would take longer than I have time to explain."

Dean looked up to see his brother heading towards them.

"You stop that from happening."

"Dean."

"No, you said you wanted to help him, so you stop that from happening."

Dean stood and started towards his brother. He heard the being behind him sigh and do the same.

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Sam nodded at them. "Dean…and friend?"

"Not exactly."

Sam stiffened. "Dean, I told you, I'm out of that."

Dean put his hands up and waved them in a stopping motion. "It's not like that. Just finished up a job and…" He shrugged. "I wanted to see you."

"That's it? After all this time you finally came to see me?"

"Actually." The guy with Dean said. "He's been by several times to see you, he just didn't let you know."

Given the murderous glower that Dean was giving the guy with him, he had to be telling the truth.

"Dude." His brother said, the affront clear on his face.

"You care deeply for your brother Dean. Why hide it?"

"And again. Dude!"

Sam chuckled. "Nice to meet someone who doesn't put up with my brother's bullshit." He held out his hand. "Sam Winchester."

Awkwardly, the guy with Dean returned the handshake.

"Cas."

Sam waited for a last name. It seemed to take the guy a moment to realize that.

"Novak."

"Pleased to meet you. Is the Cas short for something?"

The guy hesitated again.

"Casper."

They both heard Dean choke laugh.

"What?"

Dean shook his head. "It's just, you're neither a ghost, nor particularly friendly."

Cas frowned. "I never said I was."

"No, uh…" Dean started and then waved him off. "Never mind."

'Casper' turned back to Sam. "In any case, I prefer Cas."

Sam gave him little smile and nodded.

Sam glanced up at a clock. "I have to get to my next class. If you're really just here to visit, then how about you come over for supper, about six? I'll introduce you to… Well, to the girl I hope to marry someday."

He had to smile at Dean's open mouth look of shock. It ought to be a fun dinner.


End file.
